I'm sharing out fizzy drinks with a bunch of lads in a backstreet in Langa Township, Cape Town. I've just popped out for a spot of air in between courses of ostrich stroganoff and ice cream at Lelapa restaurant, and been sucked into an impromptu kickabout. The boys are being boisterous and cheeky, and I'm having a much nicer time than I'd anticipated.

I wasn't looking forward to the Township tour I'd been persuaded to take. I hadn't come to Cape Town for what I perceived to be a guilt trip. Rather I'd been dreaming of Africa's take on California: the palm trees and golden sands of Camps Bay, the IMAX views from Table Mountain and the winding country roads to the winelands.

To get to all this from the airport, you first have to drive down the N2 motorway, which is flanked on either side by the warped, buckled and corrugated shacks of the squatter camps and the small brick houses of the Townships. They register, then fly by in a blur, and before long you are deposited in downtown Cape Town, which could double for west-coast USA or Australia. Later, from the top of Table Mountain, you get a better idea of the spread of Cape Town: the honeypot location of downtown is surprisingly small. Much bigger are the flatlands that spread out to the distant mountains, the Cape Flats, where the Townships are, and where the majority of the city's black people live. Some people - and I used to count myself among them - are content to leave it at that: a 60mph drive by, or a 1,000m view from a mountain. To do so is to dismiss the biggest sector of the city out of hand. And, more importantly, to miss an opportunity to put money directly into the hands of people who need it the most.

"Most of our people who have been on a Township tour claim it's the most interesting thing they have done here," says Roger Diski of UK-based Africa specialist Rainbow Tours. "It's such a different way of life and it's rich in its own way. The restaurants have good food; go to a shebeen and you'll have the best night out. There's a fantastic warmth, hospitality and vibrancy in places that you initially brush aside as just being about terrible poverty."

It seems significant, then, that the first place in the world to introduce Fair Trade labelling to tourism should come in the country that has pioneered such grassroots tours.

Fair Trade in Tourism South Africa (FTTSA) is the winner of our inaugural ethical travel award. They assess South African travel businesses on whether they adhere to Fair Trade criteria such as decent wages and working conditions for their staff, can show they promote local culture and try to limit their impact on the environment.

Among the 21 companies that have gained Fair Trade accreditation since the scheme started in 2003, is Calabash Tours in Port Elizabeth, which arranges such Township tours. But, lest you fear that all this fairness comes at the expense of comfort and fun, there are also luxury lodges - such as Sabi Sabi game reserve in the Kruger national park and the Tswalu Kalahari reserve.

All these companies were already putting something back into the communities and environment in which they are based, so why is a certification scheme important? Well, with many more travellers wanting to stay in places that care about these issues, it's all too easy for some companies to claim to be responsible simply to cash in on the bouyant green pound. Many trumpet sustainable credentials by making token gestures such as employing local people to run the bar or putting on a post-dinner tribal dance.

The FTTSA scheme could be a model for the rest of the world. Already, the international Fair Trade Labelling Organisation is looking into how fair trade can be applied to tourism. We think that makes it a worthy winner.